“The uncertainties in my work are like the stars in the sky. Looking from a distance, it is just another point. Divulging the worlds inside me that are alike but not equal…”

Artist Note, 2013

Gallery is pleased to present recent works by Seungyoon Choi that portray the prolific energy of the world with his expressive strokes and moderate colors. They are speculation and attention to the basic principles that constitute and operate the world where he creates his abstract language. The unique charm and dynamic energy from its aesthetic pleasure and gesture have yielded him firm patronage, and many companies have collaborated with him such as Samsung TV in 2019.

Choi has been expressing on canvas the duality and paradoxical phenomena in the world that he has pondered. While this seems fundamental and macroscopic, it is a question stemming from his own experience and perception in daily life. It is about the world and himself in the first place. Coupled with the concept of time, it has led him to reflect on paradoxes in life and death, flow and halts, and observation of small things in earthly life and its subtle emotions.

Gallery features Choi once again since the ‘Blue Flower’ show in 2017. This solo exhibition finds significance in that the artist goes beyond his way of seeing the world from the perspective of others that has separated him from its reality. Instead, he now locates himself in it to establish a more organic relationship between him and the world. This includes sentiments based on his imagination of future society with artificial intelligence and digital reality in which the continuum of his thoughts thus far is embodied as the ‘world ahead’. His oeuvre until now, including this show and the profile of space and time series in the previous years, is very consistent and it defines the theme of expanding and narrating his attitude towards the world. On view will be about 30 new paintings that focus on Me and the World series, which is the title of the work and the theme of this exhibition.

It is notable that his work expressively renders the slice of life and the world that cannot be defined singularly, and sublimates them into liberating and dynamic energy. This energy seems to originate from the compression and movement of time created by the overlap of brush strokes. The ideas of individual, object, and subject do not predate, but it may result from various forces or flows of attributes that constitute them. His work shows a more refined sensibility with a solid structure to move away from existential anxiety. The possibility of “I” that leaps away from the existing notions to affirm and create life is presented to encounter. The exhibition pays attention to this idea and poses another reflection on the world and ourselves.

“The world I’ve ever pondered was missing something… If you think about it, the world cannot be completed without the piece of “I”… Now, I’m going to start talking about the World and I.”

Artist Note, 2020